Ruff Night (PG)

By -
Possibly Gruesome - Contains descriptions of vomitting.

I had a "ruff" night because I spent part of it being as sick as a dog. ;o)

I finished my methotrexate yesterday evening about 1930 and a bit later
started on my last new chemo drug 6660mg of cytarabine in 500ml of saline
given over two hours.

The cytarabine was all finished and flushed out my line by about 22:30 and
I would have the same dose 12 hours later.

I noticed my stomach started to feel a bit off around 23:15 so I let the
nurses know. They said they would have to check if there was anything
written up for me for antisickness that they could give to outside the
regular schedule.

Meanwhile I had got a couple of sick bowls ready and at 23:45 I was sick
and up came my evening cocoa ( about 350 ml as the bowls have measuring
lines on them for keeping track of fluid output).

That wasn't too bad as it came up fairly easily with no retching and I felt
relief from the nausea. Unfortunately 10 mins later back came the nausea
and I was sick again but this was harder as there was not much left to come
back up.

This set a regular pattern sick, relief then almost exactly 10 mins later
sick again. Each time was harder as there was nothing left to come up.

This went on for an hour while the nurses got the doc to write up an
injection of ondansatron because I'd never keep a tablet down long enough.

At 01:00 I got my injection and it worked straight away no more nausea and
I was asleep by 01:15

I don't feel too bad this morning though my tummy is a bit sore there's no
real nausea at present. I had a light breakfast of just a slice of toast
and jam, no butter. That has stayed put so far.

I started my next bag of cytarabine at 08:00 and it's just finished next
one at 20:00 tonight.

The doc will write up meds the nurses can give me at any time if the nausea
comes back.

It was a rough couple of hours but I'd had a good run with side effects up
to now.

In other news I'm taking predenisolone steroid eye drops every 2 hours
during waking hours to prevent the cytarabine causing crystals to form in
my eyes.

I'm also having an injection of follinic acid into my line every three
hours. This is to remove the methotrexate from my blood.

When the methotrexate levels are low enough I'll be allowed home. This
might be Tuesday but more likely Wednesday.

Comments

Gordon said…
Can't say I like the sound of measuring the amount of V.... but still you have had a very good run and lets hope it's the worst over. Keep your pecker up and as your Mom says keep taking the tablets and drinking the water although I would pass on the second until the 4 litres is reduced. M&D
4 May 2008 at 14:43
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